Harry’s breast was agitated by conflicting emotions.  To know that her boy was safe—­that there could be no murder done—­gave her a sense of intense relief, which could scarcely be called selfish.  But that reflection was but transient, and a passionate burst of sorrow succeeded it.  The only man she had ever loved—­around whom, centred her most precious memories—­had died, then, thus miserably, after miserable years of bondage endured on her account.  She saw him with her mind’s eye once more as when he had clasped her in his arms for the first time upon the ruined tower—­as when he had rained his kisses on her lips beside the Wishing Well—­in his youth and beauty and passion.  Her nineteen years of loveless wedlock were swept away, and left her as she saw herself in the little portrait he himself had painted, and which was now his legacy.  His menaces and vows of vengeance against her and hers were all forgotten; her woman’s heart was loyal to him whom she had owned its lord, and once more did him fealty.

“Oh, Richard, Richard, my dear love,” cried she; “God knows I would have died to save you!”

“Come here, Harry—­come here,” whispered Mrs. Basil, “and let me kiss you.  I would that I could weep like you; but the fountain of my tears has long been dry.  I thought you would have been glad to feel that you and yours were safe—­that retribution was averted from the man, your husband; but I now see I did you wrong.  Your heart is touched—­you remember him as he was before the taint of crime was on him.”

“It never was!” cried Harry, passionately.  “He never meant to wrong my father of a shilling.”

“Well said, dear Harry; well said.  He was himself a wronged—­a murdered man.  Imprisoned for nineteen years, and then to perish thus!  And yet men talk of Heaven’s justice!  My boy! my boy!”

The two women were silent for a while—­the one gazing with dry eyes but tender yearning face upon the other, as she rocked herself to and fro, and shook with stifled sobs.

“Dear Harry, you must not desert me now,” pleaded the former, pitifully; “I am very old, and this has broken me.  He was my all—­my only one on earth—­and he is dead.  I shall not trouble you long.  We two, child, were the only ones that loved him, and we love him still.  Let me cling to you, Harry, since it is but for a little while; and let us talk of him together, when we are alone, and think of what he was.  So bright, so gay, so—­Oh, my boy! my boy!”

The tears rushed to the mother’s eyes at last.  Hard Fate was softened for a while toward it’s life-long victim; and side by side sat the two bereaved women, each striving to comfort the other, after woman’s fashion, by painting in its brightest colors that dead Past which both deplored.  Begotten of their common sorrow, Love sprang up between them, and on one side confidence; and into Mrs. Basil’s hungry ears Harry, for the first time, poured the story of her courtship.  Richard’s death had cemented